The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man and Ecological Degradation: A Critical Reconstruction of Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s Ecological Philosophy

Abstract

The current ecological crisis is generally framed in terms of climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, technology, economic growth, and environmental governance. But these approaches do not sufficiently explain why ecological destruction continues in the face of unprecedented scientific knowledge. The present article seeks to critically reconstruct the ecological thought of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, to investigate the metaphysical, epistemological, spiritual and ethical roots of this crisis. It mainly draws on The Encounter of Man and Nature, Knowledge and the Sacred, The Need for a Sacred Science and Religion and the Order of Nature and argues that Nasr views ecological degradation as a consequence of the desacralisation of knowledge and nature which favours reductionism, anthropocentrism, over consumption and technological domination. Drawing on the Create-a-Research-Space (CARS) model, the article identifies a gap in the existing scholarship: while Nasr’s significance for Islamic environmental thought is well recognised, little work has been done to reconstruct the causal logic of his ecological critique and to assess its practical limits. The analysis shows that tawḥīd, khalīfah, amānah, mīzān, scientia sacra and the resacralisation of nature provide a coherent metaphysical and ethical alternative. However, Nasr’s framework needs to be integrated with environmental science, political economy, institutional governance and social justice. In the end, the legacy of Nasr is to confront the worldview that lies behind ecological degradation and to link environmental responsibility to spiritual and moral transformation.